


Unrest

by Jay_Wells



Series: The Odd Life of Alexander Hamilton [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: 1960s, 1970s, Child Abandonment, Chronic Illness, F/M, Families of Choice, Friendship, Funerals, Homelessness, Loss of Parent(s), Parent-Child Relationship, Siblings, St. Croix, St. Kitts & Nevis, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jay_Wells/pseuds/Jay_Wells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As to what you say respecting your having soon the happiness of seeing us all, I wish, for an accomplishment of your hopes provided they are Concomitant with your welfare, otherwise not, tho doubt whether I shall be Present or not for to confess my weakness, Ned, my Ambition is prevalent that I contemn the grov’ling and condition of a Clerk or the like, to which my Fortune &c. condemns me and would willingly risk my life tho’ not my Character to exalt my Station.<br/>[Alexander Hamilton, Letter to Edward Stevens 1769]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Alexander Hamilton was born 11 January, 1964 a citizen of St. Kitts-Nevis to an American mother and a Scottish father two years after the collapse of the West Indies Federation. His parents had come to the islands in a time where most everyone was leaving his mother had no education, his father no job, and the cotton plantations fifteen years abolished. He would not remember any of this due to his young age, but he remembered clearly the day when what little they had was taken.

Their family was poor, but everyone else was poor, too. James and he were never mocked for that, and the other children played with them in the yard behind the schoolhouse.

What mattered was that you were respectable, and the Hamiltons had all the appearances of a respectable family. Mrs. Hamilton kept the house spotless, did the laundry and kept the heirloom china in a glass cabinet in the dining room and only took it out for Christmas and Easter. Mr. Hamilton was an insurance salesman who went out and socialised five times a week. The boys James and Alexander were friendly and intelligent. They invited the neighbours over, went to church and generally did everything they were supposed to. A good, honest, hardworking family.

As of May 1967, Alexander was no longer a citizen of the West Indies Federation. He was a British citizen, living on British soil; this didn’t change much for him -- he had always had British citizenship, it was just a matter of going to Britain to claim it. Alexander’s father, however, was _not_ an insurance salesman. In fact, not only was his father not an insurance salesman, he was in massive debt and all his creditors lived in Britain. Meanwhile, it came out that Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton weren’t actually married -- Rachel’s real husband and son, Peter, lived on the other side of the little thirty-six square mile island. The town excommunicated the family from the church and became very cold. So, in 1972, they moved to his mother’s home island of St. Croix, to the town of Christiansted.

 

* * *

 

“Da, how come you don’t read to us anymore?” Alex was trying to keep his balance walking on the low-lying wall along the side of the road. “I miss you.”

“Alex, my boy, sometimes you’ve got to put away childhood indulgences.” Alex loved his Da’s thick accent, especially when he read to the family about Scotland. He promised to take them there someday. “You’re getting too old for stories.”

“I think you should still read to me.” Alex placed one sandal-clad foot in front of the other and tripped, nearly tumbling to the ground before Da caught him in one arm.

“Woah, now, lad!” Da checked him over. “Be careful. How many Alexes do we have?”

“One.” Alex answered. “So I’ve got to be careful.”

“That’s right. Let’s go home.”

Da was much taller, and Alex was stumbling to keep up. He reached out to grab his father’s hand, but Da always remained a few feet out of reach and Alex couldn’t quite catch him.

 

Alex woke up bleary-eyed a few hours after going to bed, James still snoring beside him. His father stood in the doorway, smiling at them, before turning around. Alex bolted upright. “Da? Where are you going?”

Da froze and came into the room. “Nowhere far. I’ll be back soon enough. I’ve just got some work I need to get done. Go back to sleep.”

“Da, I’m scared you won’t come back.” Alex felt tears pricking his eyes. One rolled down his cheek. “Please don’t go. Don’t you love us anymore?”

His father ruffled his hair. “Of course. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.” He leaned and kissed both boys on the cheek. “Promise. Okay?”

“Okay.” he answered quietly, a voice saying he would see his father ever again. “I love you, Da.”

His father was already gone. Alex lied in bed for a few more hours, unable to sleep, before crawling over his brother and down the hall to his parents’ room and opened the door slowly. _“Maman? Are you here?”_

 _“Wi, Alex, what do you need?”_ Alex crawled into his mother’s bed and curled against her in the crook between her chest and knees.

_“Maman, why is Da leaving?”_

Maman sucked in her breath, and she pulled him closer. Alex could smell his mother’s shampoo. _“Baby, I don’t know. Let’s talk about this in the morning, when I can explain it to both of you.”_

In the morning, Maman explained that their father was gone, she didn’t know where or why, and probably wasn’t coming back. They were on their own now, and they would be okay. They would survive this as a family. She loved them both very much, and would not let them be totally abandoned.


	2. A Series of Unfortunate Events

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: There is a graphic suicide in this chapter. There is also depictions of homelessness.

Alexander shivered while his cousins lowered his mother into the ground. Through his feverish haze, he dumbly registered that Mama was gone forever. They weren’t in a churchyard -- the churchgoers didn’t want a “ruined” woman buried among them. When he had first heard, he’d been angry, but now he felt too drained. It wasn’t so bad on the family plot. They were farther inland than Alexander had ever been, and light ocean breeze didn’t quite reach them and the palm trees for once stood at attention. Alexander imagined that they were guards with their biting leaves, ready to defend his mother’s final resting place.

It didn’t make him feel any better.

He looked up at cousin Peter standing next to him. Peter lived alone with his maid and her child. People said he was sad, and that’s why he didn’t have a wife, but he didn’t look sad. He looked tired, with bags under his eyes and the corners of his mouth drooping, like smiling was just too much work. Alexander understood that. “Do ya think Da will come back for us?”

Peter gave an exhausted sigh. “I just don’t know, partner. You could write him, if you know where to send the letter. I’ll ask Melanie to buy you some stamps tomorrow. Sound good.”

Not really. “Yeah.”

He rested a hand on Alexander’s forehead. “This isn’t good for you. Come on, it’s time to go home. Your shitty half-brother leave anything for you to pack that wasn’t nailed down?”

“Doesn’t matter if it was nailed down.” he shrugged. “He sold the house.”

“Okay, who does that to kids? Jesus.” It was the first flash of energy Peter had shown since Alexander met him. “Well, good news for you: my papa bought your books back. Get better, and you might get them as a congratulatory present.” He winked. “Jem! are you ready to go?”

James was standing stiffly, hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I’m ready.”

They went back to the house quietly.

 

* * *

 

The next few weeks were almost peaceful. Alexander got better, but there was a possibility that there were still dormant parasites in his liver. The only way to be sure was an expensive examination, which was not covered by Peter’s insurance. They’d just have to see.

“I suggest staying away from alcohol, son.” his doctor had advised.

Melanie was nice, Alexander decided after about a week. She made good rice pilaf, and she taught James, who’d dropped out of school, basic math. It didn’t take long to figure out her relationship to Peter, or who the father of her baby was. This was close enough to being his cousin for Alexander and he began to think of her as such.

He wasn’t going to school anymore. He couldn’t afford paper and pencils and binders and the other trappings of students, so he took a full time job at Cruger’s, a company that imported paper, books and chocolate from New York and sent Caribbean sugar and fruits up north. The work wasn’t too hard -- St. Croix used the U.S. dollar, so the only conversion he had to do was when they traded with Nevis -- the math didn’t take a genius, but it was tedious and there didn’t seem to be meaning to it. The pay wasn’t even very good after taxes, not for the countless stupid questions he got from tourists. No, the store did not give discounts for the CityPass; no, he could not tell them what stores did; yes, the beach was that way -- it was a fucking island, and not a very big one. He stayed because Mr. Cruger liked him and gave him a new book every so often, usually the misprints and miscuts, but they were new.

Still, it was draining, and he understood Peter’s unwillingness to face the day and wondered how his mother did it. He asked Melanie one day after about five people came in asking him to break a twenty and leaving without buying anything.

“Your mama had something to work for, sweetheart.” She bounced Ajax on her hip. “When you have children, you work to make things better for them. Maybe I won’t see better days, but my son might. Even if it’s very unlikely, it’s still a possibility that I’m willing to work for.”

“Why doesn’t Peter help you then?” Alexander took the baby while she started the dishes. He cooed and tugged at his hair. “Ow, Ajax. Don’t pull my hair.”

She stood with her hands in the water, inhaling deeply. “Because he has not been a very good father so far. To start trying now would mean he had to face up to the past, and he’s not ready for that yet. He’s a very sick man, and this is the only way he can take responsibility and still justify his distance to himself.”

“That’s not fair!” Alexander stood up quickly, and the baby whined in protest. “He can’t just say that, and then it’s alright!”

“I didn’t say it was fair, or that I liked it. I said it was the way it was.” She sounded defeated, just like all the adults he knew. It seemed like no one was satisfied.

Alexander had half a mind to storm upstairs and tell Peter to get off his ass and take care of this woman. “Someone oughta -- ”

“That’s enough, now.” Melanie dried her hands off on a dish towel and patted his cheek. “You’re very kind, and you -- you and your brother both -- feel things very deeply. Keep it under control, and that’ll get you somewhere, but if you go charging head-on without reflection, you’ll realise that the consequences aren’t fun. I’m gonna finish dishes, and then take dinner out. Put Ajax in his playpen and go fetch Peter.”

Ajax’s playpen was at the foot of the stair so Melanie could hear him from anywhere in the house. Alexander deposited the baby there and climbed the stairs. It was an old house, so the stairway was narrow and steep, as well as creaky, and it was creepy at night, but during the day there was nothing strange about it. He got to the top of the stairs and caught a whiff of something disgusting. It was vaguely familiar from his sickbed, and he followed the scent and opened the door to Peter’s room. “Peter? Melanie wants you down for dinner.”

It was shit. Peter had shit himself. Then Alexander registered the congealing blood on the floor, and all over the sheets. There was a knife gleaming in the sunlight, grasped loosely in Peter’s hands, and an empty bottle of painkillers -- _“I’m feeling a little ill, folks, I’m gonna lie down, maybe take an aspirin. Have a good evening, y’hear?” --_ was on the end table. Alexander knew he should check Peter’s pulse in case he was still alive, but he couldn’t bring himself to move through the doorframe. Instead he pulled the door shut and slid a chair from his room under the door knob, not really knowing why, but the corpse scared him. He walked downstairs, checking his hands compulsively -- no blood, he hadn’t touched the corpse. They were shaking, though.

He did his best to keep his voice steady. “Melanie, Peter’s dead. Suicide. I’m calling the cops.” When she gasped and moved toward the stairs, he grabbed her shoulders and shook his head. “It’s pretty bad. Let the cops handle it.”

 

* * *

 

In the aftermath, James and Alexander were left with nothing -- no living family except each other, no money, no home. Melanie was barely able to take care of herself and Ajax without them hanging around. James had found a place to stay -- an apartment that consisted of a kitchen, and bedroom and a bathroom, and only really large enough for one person. His new landlord -- also his boss -- didn’t allow more than one person to rent it for legal reasons, something about a fire code. Alexander told his brother to accept the offer and promised he’d stay at a friend’s. However, his pride kept him from asking his only friend for help, so he slept on the beach on a blanket spread out over the sand, well above the tide line. It wasn’t terrible, since it never got cold, and he made enough to buy peanut butter and jelly to put on crackers and cans of soup to heat up over a fire, so long as they had tabs, and he could pay for entrance at the local pool to use their showers. He washed his clothes at the laundromat. It kind of reminded him of camping with Da when he was younger.

After two weeks, Ned came to visit his little campsite. “Alex, why the fuck are you sleeping on the ground? If God intended for you to sleep of the ground, He never would have allowed somebody to invent beds.”

“It’s no problem, Ned. I’ve got all my needs covered.” Alexander gestured at the tarp he’d bought from the hardware store to keep his stuff dry, the firepit, the makeshift bed, his clothes kept clean on hangers under garbage bags. “I’m fine.”

“You’re a moron is what you are.” Ned pointed to the shopping cart he’d swiped from somewhere. “Your shit, in there. Hurry up, I wanna get out of here. The mosquitos are biting.”

He managed to ferry all his things into the Stevens’ house in the cart with Ned’s help. “So, your brother called asking for you. I told him you had a headache and were sleeping it off, but you’d call him in the morning.” He said. “You, sir, owe me.”

“Sure.” Alexander felt a bit embarrassed at the rescue. “But you don’t need to.”

“It’s what friends do, stupid.” Ned left the shopping cart in the backyard, along with the tarp and gathered up Alexander’s clothes. “Take half of these up to my room, leave the food. I’m throwing it out.”

“You can’t do that!” Alexander protested. “That’s waste. Food doesn’t grow on -- you know what I mean.”

“Here, it is plentiful. You aren’t eating these shitty crackers and jam that’ve been lying out on the beach. Quit being an ass and let’s _go._ ”

Inside Ned made him change his clothes -- “Anything _not_ covered with sand, please” -- and wash up for dinner. When he was clean to his satisfaction, he was brought downstairs. The moment he skulked into the dining room, Ned’s parents, brother and sister all turned to look at him, and he felt very self-conscious.

Mrs. Stevens smiled warmly. “Hello, Alex. Neddy told us you were stopping by today. You boys sit down and I’ll get your plates.”

 

* * *

  
Alexander felt guilty for intruding on the Stevens home, even though he was invited to stay with them as long as he needed. He knew he wasn’t going to college, Cruger wasn’t giving him a raise and it wasn’t like he had job prospects lining up to hire the seventh-grade dropout. He wasn’t getting a better job unless he was somebody’s charity case, and he refused to do that. He just needed a chance to show them he wasn’t stupid. But as he carried his meager paycheck home, it felt like that chance would never arrive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexander and his mother historically most likely had malaria, which is a parasitic infection that infects the liver. There are two kinds of the parasite that can lay eggs that, when hatched, can lie dormant in your liver, for weeks, months or years. Alexander had problems with his liver and recurrent malarial symptoms his entire life, post-illness.
> 
> Peter Lytton had a mixed-race woman and her baby living with him, who were believed to be his mistress and child. They were unnamed, so I named the woman Melanie. Ajax was the name of a slave owned by Alexander's mother. Since slavery is no longer practised, I gave the baby the name.
> 
> Lytton did commit "bloody suicide, either by shooting himself or slitting his wrists" (Chernow, "Alexander Hamilton") due to severe depression, and left nothing to James and Alexander -- it all went to the woman and baby. 
> 
> James went to be apprenticed to a carpenter, and Alexander was taken in by the mercantile Stevens family.


End file.
